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to the memory of William Glasdale that, whatever else the fucking French may be doing, Patrick Ogilvy will be dead by the year’s end, and the Maid with him.

CHAPTER THREE
O RLÉANS,
Monday, 24 February 2014
06.38
    AT 6.38 AM – the precise time is recorded in Picaut’s log book – Martin Evard, chief of the Fire Department, deems it safe to enter the saturated mess that was the Hôtel Carcassonne on the rue de la Tournée, three blocks south of the cathedral in Orléans town centre.
    It is one of the few new-builds in an area of ancient, wood-framed terraces. Here bombs fell – Hitler’s or the RAF’s – with a surprising degree of precision and only this one single block was destroyed. Its replacement was not built until the early twenty-first century, by which time it was required to conform to more modern building regulations and leave a substantial gap on each of its four sides.
    This foresight has prevented the entire north bank of Orléans from joining in the conflagration, although nearby dwellings have suffered smoke damage and a few have been scorched badly enough to peel paint from the shutters. In the usual course of events, insurance teams would follow soon after the police to assess the damage and define the costs of repair. Now, though, the investigation has progressed beyond simple arson. Not long after dawn, the Fire Department confirmed the presence of a burned corpse in a bedroom on the ground floor of the hotel.
    As a result, the square is now crowded with three photographers and five specialist forensic investigators, plus the one person who needs to be here and nobody really wants: Maître Yves Ducat, the Prosecutor.
    Ducat is the man from whom Picaut requires permission to investigate and to whom she must present her case, should she ever get that far.
    If Garonne is a soft man in a hard man’s body, Prosecutor Ducat is his opposite: a man of granite, encased in pudgy flesh and a peg-toothed smile. Clean-shaven, with a bull’s nose and a low brow, he flashes his Neanderthal grin at everyone who passes through his office without favour or discrimination. Perpetrator and victim, prosecutor and defence; all and each are treated to a bear hug, a crushing press of his chubby cheek to theirs, a booming welcome.
    Picaut fell for the false bonhomie once, and watched an almost-certain child abuser walk free on a point of law. Since then, she has treated him with extreme care and has never made any allegation she couldn’t back up with at least one piece of indisputable evidence.
    He is there now, standing four square in front of the sodden remains of the Hôtel Carcassonne, picking his nose with assiduous attention. He shoves his hands in his pockets as Picaut walks up.
    ‘Body inside?’ he says.
    ‘According to the Fire Department, yes.’
    He shakes his head, as if this is news. ‘So this is like but not like the others, yes?’
    ‘Yes. And no.’ Picaut phrases her report carefully. She is good at this, the summary of incidents, and she has had plenty of time to prepare. ‘There are differences to the previous fires, but there are also similarities. The body is the most obvious difference. We need first to establish if he died because he was caught in a fire that was lit for other reasons, or whether killing him was the point of the fire.
    ‘Beyond that, this fire is less contained than its three predecessors. It may have been less carefully lit; perhaps there was more accelerant, or it was spread more widely. This may be accidental, or it may point to a different perpetrator, but equally it may indicate that the increased damage is a deliberate escalation of the war currently being waged on Orléans.’
    ‘You have had the phone call?’
    ‘An hour after the fire was first reported. The same voice, heavily accented. He spoke for no more than twelve seconds. There was no chance of a trace.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    Picaut opens her phone, thumbs across a screen or two, reads out the